


Poison

by entanglednow



Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-06
Updated: 2009-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:05:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers the treacherous liquid, smelling vaguely of strawberries, which is absolutely nothing like what it tastes like now</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poison

Simon doesn't so much wake up, as realise that he can't breathe.

Beacause he's laying on someone else. And he has no idea _whatsoever_ who that person is, though judging by the amount of muscle, and the deep familiar smell he has come to associate with the over-cramped quarters on a ship with sub-standard air filtration, the stranger is, without doubt, male.

Though he doesn't remember how, or why, or even _when_.

Simon has some experience with hangovers, and this is something _entirely_ different. This feels like someone knocked him unconscious and then took his body out for a joyride, indulging, on the way, in some full contact sports, unspecified drug use, and dubious sexual practices, of the sort a _reputation_ could be made of.

He remembers the treacherous liquid, smelling vaguely of strawberries, which is absolutely _nothing_ like what it tastes like now.

Strawberry drinks that leave you with almost no memory of the night before, but fully capable of having complicated and unnecessarily energetic sex. The stuff must sell by the truck load out here...wherever _here_ currently is? Complete with many of its own exaggerated urban legends.

He slowly, _carefully_ , eases himself off of the warm expanse of back he'd previously been sleeping on, and, thankfully, doesn't feel like throwing up everything he's ever eaten.

That's usually considered a socially _unacceptable_ way to introduce yourself to someone else. The question of whether he really _wants_ to know is valid, but moot, since he's going to look anyway, he has to know who, or possibly what? And therefore how? Even if he feels vaguely unclean for the rest of his life.

So he slides the sheet over.

He can only see the back of his head, but that's enough, that's _more_ than enough. The stab of recognition it provides manages to lodge in his throat, long enough that he's worried he's going to choke.

He very slowly leans away, as if he can distance himself from activities he quite obviously already committed himself to.

His brain helpfully throws up, in detail, exactly _which_ activities they have to have indulged in to make him that uncomfortable in intimate places. He makes a quiet noise, then lets go, and the sheet flutters out of his fingers, manages to fall artistically, into the space it occupied before.

Which doesn't help the situation at all, since it was never covering very much to start with.

This is clearly a _horrible_ mistake, which, if Simon is lucky, no one will ever have to find out about.

His brain decides this is a helpful moment to tell him that it _does_ , in fact, remember something about last night. In fact it remembers a few things. Possible shaken loose now has a worryingly familiar _face_ to go with the memory of weight, and skin, and hands that had him twisting on the thin sheets.

He remembers losing his clothes in pieces, and not caring, he remembers the way there were fingers in his hair, over and over, dragging it down, making it a wreck of lines, while he was sliding his own hands inside Mal's pants, pulling wet, almost angry, noises up his throat.

And it's not like him, not like him at all, none of it, and he's going to blame it all on the unwise consumption of alcohol so vicious it might as well have been _poison_.

He remembers material tearing, and he remembers that Mal was annoyed about it, but then that memory is blurred out, replaced by the brighter, _sharper,_ image of a thumb catching his lower lip, and dragging his mouth open, just far enough to-

Simon slides silently back on the sheet, gets his feet under him on the floor, and picking up anything that's _his_ as he goes, very carefully backs away from the bed.

He completely misses the fact that the room isn't _empty_ , in his bid to escape, bare thighs knocking into the narrow edge of a table, the arm he flings out, much too fast, to steady it, just makes everything worse.

The table tilts, contents hanging in the air for half a second, and then it all crashes to the floor, a shower of metal and noise. Which seems to get worse as pieces fall together, roll and meet each other, or hit the walls, and make noise anew.

There's a sigh from the direction of the bed.

"You make it real hard for a man to pretend to be asleep."

Simon stands there awkwardly, not dressed enough to leave, but dressed enough to feel ridiculously awkward.

"I'm still pretending," Mal says roughly. "So I figure now would be a pretty good time to slip out, before we have to start making awkward conversation."

Simon isn't stupid of course, he's clearly supposed to pretend this never happened, hazily reforming memory or no. Though it bites at his pride, in ways he wouldn't have expected.

His clothes are still wearable, though perhaps not _salvageable_ , and he has to take a moment to untangle them from Mal's, which seems a pointed irony.

They smell like strawberries.

He thinks perhaps that isn't all he smells like now.

He thinks this would definitely be a good time _not_ to have a sister who knows everything about everyone.


End file.
